On March 1, I guest-hosted my friend Buck Sexton’s “The Buck Sexton Show.” During the episode, we discussed the Michael Cohen hearings, the Kabuki Congress and its efforts to at very worst in the eyes of The Resistance inflict punishment through the process of endless investigation, the Democratic Civil War and Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s chilling blacklist, the unwinnable 2020 Democratic field and the challenge of winning progressives and moderates, why the Left must resort to Science to justify socialism, the latest on the China and North Korea negotiations with former Deputy National Security Advisor to Vice President Dick Cheney, Steve Yates, and the future of conservatism and the defense of Tucker Carlson’s manifesto with Claremont Institute Vice President for Education and American Mind editor Dr. Matthew Peterson.

On February 15, I guest-hosted my friend Buck Sexton’s “The Buck Sexton Show.” During the episode, we discussed President Trump’s national emergency declaration to supplement border wall funding and both the political and legal arguments surrounding it with former Deputy Assistant U.S. Attorney General in the Office of Legal Counsel and current Berkeley Law professor John Yoo, the controversy surrounding the census citizenship question with former Department of Justice Civil Rights Division attorney and current President of the Public Interest Legal Foundation (PILF) J. Christian Adams as well as the rising popularity of socialism and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s Green New Deal in America.

My Guest

Jonathan Neumann has written perhaps the seminal book on how modern Jewry has supplanted its traditional values and principles with Leftism, based on a perverse, sophistic reading of the concept of tikkunolam, “healing the world,” that demands devotion to social justice as the highest good and organizing principle of the Jewish religion.

By way of background, Neumann is a graduate of Cambridge University and the London School of Economics. He has written for various American, British, and Israeli publications, was the Tikvah Fellow at Commentary magazine, and has served as assistant editor at Jewish Ideas Daily.

I dissect President Trump’s 2017 UNGA speech and discuss the ironic backlash to the Kirkpatrickian philosophy of “principled realism” that backed it during the below interview with Keith Hanson on WNTK beginning at 2:53:

Recently, world-renowned French socialist economist Thomas Piketty proffered the argument that “inequality” is the cause of ISIS.

While it may not be surprising given that Piketty’s life work has been dedicated to studying inequality (and arguing that to eradicate it we ought to tear down the capitalist system), Piketty revealed a critical insight about the Western elite: It believes global jihadism is attributable to materialist factors.

America’s government has gradually watered down its economic data over time, thereby painting a rosier picture of conditions on the ground than actually exists. Consulting economist John Williams has dedicated his life in fact to exposing its manipulation of economic data and backing into the real numbers.

But you will know when America has really hit full on panic mode when the feds stop printing figures altogether, and the only way to measure price inflation is through tracking the daily price increase of say, cronuts, or some other confection.

This is the position sadly but all-too-predictably in which Venezuela finds itself today. Writes the Wall Street Journal:

On monthly trips to his native Venezuela, Miguel Octavio heads to the same restaurant for the cornmeal cakes he enjoyed as a boy known as arepas, which are a staple here. The price, however, is never the same.

Over nine months, the Miami-based financial analyst and blogger has recorded a fourfold increase in what he calls his Hyperinflated Arepa Index, a yardstick he created to trace soaring consumer prices in this economically crippled country.

President Nicolás Maduro’s government stopped publishing monthly inflation data last December when the level hit 68% annually, the world’s highest. With the Venezuelan economy worsening and the ruling party facing tough congressional elections this December, the central bank hasn’t reported inflation, balance-of-payments or gross-domestic-product figures all year.

That has prompted economists and analysts like Mr. Octavio to compile their own indicators, basing calculations on everything from anecdotal evidence to federal tax revenue to banking-sector loans.

We know that central planning fails, but in Venezuela the not-so-benevolent dictators must have done so on an epic scale if they are no longer cooking the books but rather lighting them on fire.